This Means War
by labyrinthinemelange
Summary: Nobody turns Loki into a bunny and gets away with it. One-shot. Companion piece to the Thrice Blood Chronicles  post-Discord  but can stand on its own.


**AN: Just a little one-shot before I start "Kismet." Written in vignette style as an experiment. Soundtrack: "The Slug Party."**

**THIS MEANS WAR**

**Morning**

She rolls over with her eyes still closed, snuggling closer to her husband for warmth. She sighs happily and opens her eyes to smile at him—only to find a bearded stranger staring at her. She screams and falls out of the bed in her hurry to get away, but her legs remain stuck in the sheets.

The bearded stranger laughs, pulls her back onto the bed. His face becomes a shifting blur for a moment before the familiar pale skin and high cheekbones return. He can't stop laughing. He tells her that she should have seen her face. She just crosses her arms. He kisses her, tries to make her forgive him without apologizing. She plays along...for the moment.

**Silence**

He wakes up the next morning hearing nothing. He stares at his wife, confused, as her full-lipped mouth opens and closes without making a sound. He doesn't say anything—no need to worry her. He can solve the problem on his own.

He goes about the day, saying little and hearing nothing, not even the sound of his own voice. He begins to wonder if he is going crazy when Sif storms into the Great Hall and hands a furiously scribbled note to Darcy: _Damn it, Darcy, what's going on?_

Darcy smiles innocently as Loki stares her down. She makes a mental note to let _everyone_ except him in on the joke next time.

**Clothing**

Darcy holds up two blouses against herself in the mirror, trying to decide whether she is in a blue mood or a purple mood. She decides that she doesn't like either of them, and starts to put on her yellow blouse. The buttons refuse to close.

She struggles with the shirt, annoyed for several minutes. She only succeeds in popping two of the buttons off. Worried she's going to be late for the trial, she grabs the purple shirt and tries to put that on. She wrestles with every shirt and every dress in her closet and none of them will stay put on her body like it's supposed to—except for one.

She doesn't remember having a _green_ shirt in her closet, but she still knows exactly how it got there. She considers threatening to show up to the trial naked unless he fixes her clothes, but has a feeling that he would just cast a spell so that she appeared to be fully-dressed to everyone except himself.

So she puts the shirt on, smiling, as she plans her next move.

**On Edge**

He tells her that this is a low blow, even for her. She ignores him and surreptitiously tugs the neckline of her dress a little lower. He looks away; it doesn't help. He tries calculating very large sums of numbers in his head, but he only starts thinking of what those numbers could be referring to. He tries thinking of frost giants; it helps for all of five seconds before he forgets himself and looks back at Darcy.

He complains that she's cheating, that what she's doing isn't a proper prank. She asks him what he thinks a 'proper prank' would look like and winks. He screws his eyes shut and tells her she's being unfair. She makes a noise and he knows that she's sticking her tongue out at him, which doesn't help matters. At all.

**Inverted**

Darcy steps into her bedroom and suddenly finds herself and all the furniture upside-down. She notices Loki sitting in an armchair on the ceiling that definitely wasn't there before. He sips a cup of tea. He comments that the weather in Asgard has been lovely lately. She glares down at the ceiling, and sighs heavily. Blood rushes to her head, but she doesn't mind. It just makes her think even more clearly.

**Ninety-Nine Bottles**

He takes a sip from the glass of water during the trial, and realizes that he is feeling a bit light-headed. He thinks that he must be dehydrated, so he drinks more. Darcy tells him he looks a bit pale, and places her hand on his forehead. She looks concerned and tells him to drink plenty of water so he'll feel better soon.

He doesn't remember what happened next.

**Explanation**

Odin wants to know why Loki is walking—no, _prancing_—around the castle singing "Drunken Sailor" in falsetto, occasionally blowing up hallways and setting things on fire.

Darcy says it's a long story. Odin stares her down with his one eye, and points out that he has all the time in the world.

**Suspended**

Neither of them is allowed to use magic for a month, on pain of exile. They have to repair the castle manually, as mortals would. They don't talk to each other as they work, and they don't meet each others' eyes. They just glance at each other in their peripheral vision, smiling guiltily when the other looks at them in return.

When they finish, the castle is as good as new and both of them are tired.

Loki examines the hallway with a critical eye. "Truce?"

Darcy nods fervently.


End file.
